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This short story covers my latest escapade to the Rockies in March of 2001. Keith "Mellow" Thompson and I were accompanied by one of my local friends for the purpose of introducing us to this fantastic, but rather remote venue. We only had three days to play, so efficiency was key in order to maximize our climbing time. Detail review of the guidebook produced much salivating and as usual, a totally impractical agenda took shape: After getting to Canmore late on Thursday night, we were going to pick up our local star at 5 am and head to The Ghost with plans of bagging The Sorcerer. Even an earlier start on the next day, was going to facilitate an attempt on Hydrophobia, with a short day on Sunday completing our stellar long weekend, which we were going to reminisce about during our 6 pm flight back to the flat lands. However, for the reasons you are about to discover, we were about to experience a "typical" day at the Ghost, instead!

It all started with a reality check before we left Toronto: instead of 5 am departure next day, we settled on 7 am start and a shorter day to facilitate a little bit of a transition from our Big Smoke, rat race live styles. I ended up heading to the Ghost with our friend, while Keith decided to rest trying to squash a persistent flu bug with extra sleep, getting ready for our "big" day on Saturday. This was my first visit to The Ghost and indeed the place was awesome. Having a "big" day in mind for tomorrow, we kept our commitments low and climbed a nice route called Wicked Wanda, which went at a long pitch of solid WI4+ climbing. In line with the guidebook's promise, the top half presented cerebral moves through amazingly sculpted ice formations with fantastic positions throughout. We finished the day with a nice dinner at Zona's, being mindful to hydrate our bodies with energy giving water and keeping the nasty stuff to a bare minimum! Our spirits were high and we were ready for our big day!

Saturday started with a 4:30 am wake up call and the three of us were on the road heading back to the Ghost to bag the Sorcerer. We four wheeled many klicks of unplowed roads finally arriving at the parking spot with much anticipation, only to discover another vehicle already parked there and fresh footsteps leading off towards our route: we got scooped!

After some fussing and cussing, we decided to take advantage of a nearby area called the GBU (short for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly), which contains a few entertaining lines of various difficulties. A quick drive in that direction produced a river, which stood in our way of reaching the destination (which was only about 10 min walk away, we were to find out shortly). This is when things started to go wrong and a Ghost sized epic was about to take place!

My friend, who took over the chauffer duties, has bravely gunned the engine and with much speed and a loud blast we found ourselves in the middle of the river. The problem was that having reached this precarious place, our fast progress suddenly ended with a sound of exhaust pipe bellowing smoke underwater…Not at all what TV commercials advertise for those boulder eating SUVs! No amount of trying could budge the truck from its present position and visions of fat salmons passing by our windows entered my mind! And it was not even lunchtime!

Mr Mellow was first to realize our submarine potential and quickly evacuated himself to the shore, which enabled him to scope our predicament. His immediate and loud shouts confirmed our fears: both tires were blown and currently off their respective rims! Being both bankers, we were able to mathematically assess our options as rather dismal: Two blown tires vs one spare did not present many plausible options for fast solutions… Not to mention our truck was still stuck in the middle of the river!

After letting out a prolonged burst of hot air, usually reserved for my highly stressful working environment, we decided to hike to a nearby campsite and look for potential saviours.

Lucky for us, we found five Americans equipped with two monster trucks, just getting their breakfast ready. Notwithstanding a logistical nightmare facing us, a glimmer of hope appeared - maybe we were going to make our flight home on Sunday after all! Lucky for us again, the guys were on their day off and proved to be superbly helpful and friendly. A quick effort with a help of a 7 mm cordolette had our track on dry land, albeit on the far side of the river: yahoo!

We got to wheel changing in a hurry, until an icy position caused a jack to slip and the whole rig went crushing down. "This is not getting any easier" was Keith's only response to this latest setback, in his usual "mellow" style…which I quickly compensated with more hot air to balance the mood, lest we became too relaxed about the whole thing… What worried us the most, was the jack itself, which was now firmly pinned under the frame! Keith then proceeded with his other favourite past time: "bench pressing 4x4's". This allowed us to stack large stones under the frame and eventually free the pinned jack. To make a long story short, a long return trip to a closest town facilitated by our newly found friends, produced two new tires and mobility by mid afternoon!

Not wanting to allow the whole day to go to waste, we decided to climb Malignant Mushroom, a beautiful WI5 single pitch route. I was not at all surprised, when my friend, (no doubt ridden with soul devouring guilt for trashing the truck), suddenly appeared by my top belay, having simply soloed the thing! And he was not even breathing hard! So, our day was not lost after all and we sang praises for our American saviours long into the evening, celebrating our good luck and trembling at the thoughts of what an epic it could have been! We felt so relieved, that the hydration exercise was quickly steered towards high volume consumption of local brew and single malt refreshments.

Having to catch a 6 pm flight home the next day, we settled for yet another early (and fuzzy) start and a morning climb at Lake Louise Falls, following its superb right side pillar. We were glad to get there early, as a circus developed shortly afterwards, with many parties bombing each other, totally oblivious to the laws of physics and prudent ice climbing modus operandi regarding falling ice!

After some visiting and quick showers, we made it to the airport with the "usual" 30 mins to spare and I was glad for an uneventful, groggy flight and easy drive home on paved roads... I fell asleep with thoughts of The Sorcerer and perhaps an ACC organized trip to this spectacular area…?